I kinda suck at this!

So.... okay.  I have a bunch of stuff to post.. pictures, recipes..  various attempts at greatness..  which I swear I will post soon (and you all know "soon" can just mean "tomorrow" or it can mean "before the end of the century or so").

I gave pickling a try -- the garden this year was completely out of control (and still is).  I managed to get some San Marzano tomatoes and also some grape and cherry tomato varieties -- they took over!  And NO BLIGHT!  WAHOO!!  except now, after..  what.. ONE application of MiracleGro..  I have harvested exactly 9,732 tomatoes, with more still coming (and blooms on the vines!!).  I also planted TWO cucumber plants which promptly went insane and have produced at least 30 cucumbers.  The last 12 ended up in jars (thus my pickling adventure).. and I have to find a way to preserve these awesome tomatoes soon or I'm going to be making sauce until it's leaking out my ears!

I also have butternut squash and string beans (which haven't been quite as prolific as the tomatoes and cukes), various peppers, celery (I know, right?) and cabbage.  I also put down asparagus and got very little response.. but they DID come up.. and the package said I would get slight yields the first year.. second year should be better..  we'll see..

Okay..  soon..  I promise!

This Cake has Balls!

So today, my girlfriend Christina is on my mind as I embark on my first attempt at Red Velvet Cake Balls -- The pictures of the apple pie are on my cell phone -- awaiting upload (soon, I swear)..  and I'll have pictures and instructions on the Cake Balls (which will eventually, actually, be Cake Pops.. found on Bakerella's website -- also to follow).

The thing I like about these (aside from the fact that they are.. in fact balls made of delicious red velvet cake) is that they are appropriate serving sizes.. You can have one.. even if it's decadently decorated and topped with an oreo cookie -- and satisfy your sweet tooth without enraging your waist line!

Stay tuned!!

November is here, you know what that means...

That's right.

Pie.

I have a really hard time with this for a couple of reasons.  First, DUH.. pies are usually loaded with sugar and to be perfectly honest, I tend to like my sweets chocolate flavored and not quite so sweet.  Sort of like, chocolate... with almonds on it.. that's my speed of sweet.  But in the fall, okay, I likes me some pie!  But because they are usually loaded with sugar, I dump after just a few bites and that SUCKS.  Second is, well.. unless I get a piece of pie at the beginning of Thanksgiving feast, there just is no room.. not for a while and by the time there IS room.. all the other piggies in the house have gobbled down all the good stuff and I'm left with the burnt side of the blueberry pie (and I hate blueberry pie).. so I just skip it.

This year, I decided to try something new.

Wisconsin, and specifically this area of Wisconsin where I live, is sort of famous for a fall sweet treat called a Taffy Apple Sundae -- basically, at apple harvest time, you can go to an orchard and pick apples but they almost always have a booth set up somewhere with an apple corer, hot melted caramel and crushed peanuts -- they will slice you up a crisp, fresh tart beauty, smother it in hot caramel sauce and ladle on some chopped peanuts and you eat it just like that.

It is, of course, delicious.  It is also incredibly NAUGHTY and high on the list of things we should consider NOT eating -- ever.

In lieu of actually HAVING a Taffy Apple Sundae, I decided to give baking a Taffy Apple pie a try.. but I decided to start with a plain old apple pie recipe and run wild with it.

It all started with a batch of about 8 or 9 large (about 6 1/2 cups) Jonagold apples which I peeled, cored and sliced then tossed with lemon juice.

THEN it got interesting.. I wanted a caramel sauce that wasn't too sticky, but also not too watery.. so I combined a packed 1/2 cup of Splenda Blend brown sugar blend with a Tablespoon of cornstarch, 1/4 c. water, 1/3 cup of half & half, 2 Tablespoons of light Karo corn syrup and 1 Tablespoon of butter over medium heat until it got all bubbly and brown looking (don't worry the lumps will work themselves out).. but you gotta stir it the whole time or it'll scald so get your ingredients all ready beforehand.  When the caramel sauce starts to look like it's curdling, cook it for two minutes more, then remove it from heat and add about 1/2 teaspoon of really good vanilla.  Once you're done with that, you can leave it for a bit...

Now take about a fist-full of that Splenda Blend and throw it on top of the apples, grate some fresh nutmeg on there (if you must measure, I think I used about 1/4 teaspoon), toss on some cinnamon and about two or three pinches of salt...  add about 2/3 c. chopped or ground peanuts (unsalted, if you grind them yourself -- use that old coffee grinder you never grind coffee with anymore.. that should do the trick) and use your hands to mix that all up really good.. coat the apples with that stuff as much and as evenly as you can..

Pile the apples into a pre-made pie crust in a 9" pie plate.. pile it high!  (don't worry they cook down).. use them ALL !  and don't worry if you have to sort of smash them down a bit.. they'll forgive you.

now..  light some candles.. turn on some Barry White.. slip into something sexy and grab that pan of caramel sauce and drizzle it aaaaalllll over those apples..  yeahhh.. that's right..   keep it comin..   just like that.. yum! while you're drizzling, keep murmuring to yourself..  "that's right, baby.. I made it with Splenda...."

If you need to take a break to cool off, it's okay.. no one has to know.. when you come back, put the second pre-made pie crust over the top of the apples, seal and flute the ends, cut vents in and pop that baby in the oven on 425 for 40 to 45 minutes.

What comes out the other side should be a golden brown, deliciously decadent but not too sweet Thanksgiving delight that won't break your heart OR your waistline.. just be sensible with portions! (pictures will be added at my next break)

Enjoy!

Festa Italiana, part 2 -- the meat!

Okay.. next up.. prepping for dinner,  We didn't really have much idea of what we wanted to make -- just some random ingredients and a few ideas.

So, the soup.  Christina had found this great recipe online and we did our very best to follow it but you know, I think we have RDD -- recipe deficit disorder.  We start out with ALL the best intentions .. but we get led astray so quickly.  She had bought a bunch (about 10 - 12 of them, a little bigger than golf balls) of little vine tomatoes at the Italian grocery and the recipe called for us to roast those, a sliced onion, garlic cloves and some carrots in the oven til they were nice and soft.  We drizzled them with olive oil and sprinkled a little salt on them (and added a little more granulated garlic, just for good measure) and roasted them for about 45 minutes.

Once cooked, we dropped them into the blender with about 2 1/2 cups of milk and 2 cups of water and a few leaves of basil.  Blend, blend blend, into the bowls, add a dollop of greek yogurt and a sprig of parsley.  Done!!

Christina had this gorgeous little fragrant muskmelon, about the size of a large softball.  We sliced it and wrapped some fresh, thin prosciutto around it, topping it off with a slice of cherry cheddar cheese.

This was one of those discoveries from the fridge -- not on the plan at all but came up really delicious.  The muskmelon was sweet but subtle and no one flavor overpowered the others.. the cherry cheddar gave us a little sweet and a little tang and the prosciutto gave just a teensy bit of salty.  It was like the perfect bite.

Next we sliced a small baguette and brushed extra virgin olive oil on top.  We popped that into the oven at 400 to toast while we started to prep the meat-a-balls-a.

Now, this occurred organically -- and I don't mean we got it all from the fields.. I mean we found a recipe that told us how long and at what temp to cook meatballs, and we made up the rest.

We started with about 4# of meat -- a combination of beef and pork that's usually sold as "meatloaf" at the store. You could certainly use any ground meat for this, but I think I would shy away from using turkey or chicken and in fact I might have preferred to use a combination of beef and lamb or even beef and venison.  These meatballs were hearty chunks of meat.  In the bowl, we combined one egg, a mixture of different spices that included parsley (1/4 c. fresh), dill (1TB), garlic powder (3 tsp), chopped onions (one small onion), rosemary (2tsp) , sage (2tsp), salt (pinch/dash -- you don't need very much), white pepper, italian breadcrumbs (3/4c), paremesan cheese (1/4c), olive oil (drizzled over top) and spinach (a good sized handful, shredded by hand as shown on the left).

Now, you have to know, you gotta use your hands to mix this all together and it's messy so if you aren't one who likes to gets their hands messy or get food under your fingertips, wear latex gloves.. there's no other way to do this effectively. You won't get all the spices mixed in well enough. Once they're all mixed together, roll the meat into balls, about the size of your palm when you cup your hand.  Yeah, I have man hands, my meat-a-balls-a gonna be BIG!

Lay them on a baking sheet (you might want to put down some tin foil to help with cleanup, as we learned, this will create some mess) about an inch apart from each other.  They go into the over for about 25 to 30 minutes at 425 .. but you have to watch them.  They'll turn a gorgeous color of dark golden brown and they'll get firm when they're done - but you're still going to have to take one out and bust it open to test it -- don't worry, you won't regret it.

So the bread comes out of the oven and we put a small amount of triple cream brie on top, then pop them back in quickly to get the brie to melt down a little.  Meanwhile, we sliced some fresh figs thinly and when the brie had melted for about two minutes, we pulled the bread and placed a slice of fig on top.  The heat mellowed the brie considerably -- it was like rich butter, but the fig on top gave it just enough tart and sweet.  It was the hit of the night.  I could have made a meal of just these little bruschettas.  There wasn't a thing missing.

While the meat-a-balls-a were baking, we boiled up a package of pasta, al dente.  We heated the sauce I brought down from home and set the table for the festa! 

I can't believe I actually forgot to mention dessert!  In fact, dessert was SO delicious, and gobbled down SO quickly, there was no time to get the camera out before there was nothing left but crumbs.  Once again, the mystical combination of salty and sweet has found its way onto my table again (big surprise, right?)  We basically took a square container of ice cream and cut it into slices, then quartered it.  Each of those little quarters was pressed between a pair of saltines.  Yes, that's what I said; a pair of saltines.  Ed wasn't convinced of the potential for scrumptiousness of this combination and asked for ice cream between graham crackers instead.  I liked my two little sammiches so much, I bequeathed my graham cracker sammich to Ed without even trying it.  This is ingenious and delicious -- and the size is just right, too!

So this was Festa Italiana, folks.  Please let me know if you need or want clarification on any of the dishes we made -- I'll be happy to give you what you need or if you have an idea or a question about what I think might work as a substitute.

Festa Italiana, Part 1

WOO!  It's been a long couple of weeks for me, kiddos!  Drum corps season ended (abruptly leaving a BIG HOLE in my life..  when's audition camp again?) and then I started my new job so .. not much time for food (WHAT??).

That all changed last night.  Christina, Ed and I decided to have a "party" which consisted of she and I cooking, and all three of us eating.. Ed helped by reading one of the recipes aloud so we could work and chatter without having to stop and look at the recipe (right.. like we actually USE recipes!)

For dinner, we planned:

Home-a-made-a Meat-a-balls-a

Fresh Marinara Sauce

Tomato, Carrot and Basil Soup

Prosciutto Wrapped Melon

Fig and Brie Bruschetta

Yes.  All of it.  We also had two bottles of red wine:  von Stiehl's Naughty Girl and Cedarburg Winery's 2007 Hillside Red.

I KNOW they say "you shouldn't drink after surgery" but you know what?  It's going to happen.  Depending on your situation, wine may be a part of your life after surgery.  I drink it with a good meal because I think it adds a flower to the flavor bouquet of the whole experience but you know, that's just me.  I realize there are people who can't drink it and I realize there are people who SHOULDN'T drink it (hello!!  ex-boyfriend, anyone?) but if you decide you will add wine to your post-op life, I hope you'll explore all the beauty and complexity that can be found in a wonderful vintage paired with a delicious meal.

In this case, the Naughty Girl was a blend of delicious grape and brightly fruity raspberry wines tied up with a bow of grape brandy. The initial taste is almost like candy - it fills your entire face with flavor and touches all points on your palate.  The finish is much darker and dry at the front of your tongue -- very naughty, indeed!!  I will be obtaining more of this delicious red blend, for sure! I'll talk more about the pairing with the food further on.

Hillside Red is a longtime favorite of mine because I think it's robust, grapey body makes it very easy to drink and it doesn't sit on your palate like a linebacker waiting for the next play.  Unfortunately, we opened this bottle second and in comparison, it came up a little flat.  Taken in solo accompaniment to the meal, it would have been fine and in fact quite nice.

The festa began on Thursday at my house up in Wisconsin as I took about 20 of those deliciously plump and sweet hybrid Roma tomatoes out of my garden and let my mom chop and marinate them (and no it's not slave labor to employ your mom to do your dirty work in this!) in red wine overnight.

We also pulled fresh basil, flat leaf parsley and red basil for the party.  I had picked up three different varieties of garlic at the farmer's market last Saturday as well and those were incorporated.  What kind?  Couldn't tell ya.  They smelled great and one of them is supposed to be a "red" garlic -- either way.. delicious.  I chopped up two cloves of each plus a couple of cloves of my standard, store bought garlic.

It all started with the garlic onions and shallots in olive oil.  I probably used about 1/4 cup of extra virgin olive oil, half a white onion, four stalks of scallions, and my gorgeous little shallots from the garden (about 6 cloves worth) and a dash of salt -- by dash I mean a few pinches til I could just smell it in the mix.  Let that saute in the bottom of the large pot while I prepped the rest of the tomatoes.  I do usually add San Marzano tomatoes to the mix.  If I can find them fresh, without a doubt, that's going in.
In 99% of my attempts, though, grocers look at me with puzzled expressions and I end up in the "Italian" aisle, loading up my cart with cans of stewed, whole or chopped San Marzano tomatoes.  For this batch, I used an entire #10 (industrial sized) can of whole stewed tomatoes.  I used my Martha Stewart Pastry cutter to chop them up in the bowl.  Nobody ever said you have to use your tools for only the thing they're named after!

You'll learn that I'm not a fan of everything being all chopped up perfectly.  I prefer everything rough chopped so that the flavor varies with every bite.  You still get the overall experience, but the food LOOKS more interesting to me when it's laid out on the plate.

I stirred the onions and added some fresh parsley and basil to the mixture to let the flavors simmer together.  This is the base of your sauce and the more flavor you give it now, the better I think it holds up when you start layering in the other fresh ingredients.  As soon as those fresh leaves were wilted and dark from the heat, I added the chopped tomatoes marinated in wine.  Stir, stir, stir!!  Get those flavors all wrapped around each other!  Cover and simmer, stirring occasionally to let those tomatoes cook down.  Don't take the cover off too often as you don't want to lose much of that juice to steam just yet.

When it's good and boiled down, add the smashed San Marzano's, more wine, olive oil and more salt and pepper.  You're going to need to taste this as you go because even if you're opposed to cooking with salt and pepper, you NEED to or the sauce won't develop the way it should.  Have some plain bread to dip if you can't eat it right off the spoon.  Continue to taste and add basil, garlic and parsley -- again, FRESH IS BEST.. the flavors are brighter and will infuse more flavor with less volume.

You can leave this to simmer, covered for a while more -- maybe 30 or 45 minutes on med low.  If you're using a copper or copper bottom pot, the heat is already in the metal, you don't need more.  Stir periodically to make sure you're not overcooking and getting stuff sticking to the bottom.  If you notice that you are, reduce the heat.

As a side note, I don't add ANY water to this sauce.  The water that has reduced out of the tomatoes should suffice.  I DO add wine -- a lot of it.  I usually use at least half a bottle.  Don't worry about the alcohol as it cooks right off, leaving you with that delicious robust flavor.  Not a bad idea to have two bottles of whatever you cooked with.. one to cook, one to drink with dinner.  If you're not sure what kind of wine to use, go with a hearty Italian red -- you can never go wrong with a Chianti or a Sangiovese for cooking, even if you drink something else.  Try to stay away from overly oaky reds (I wouldn't use a Cabernet, for instance.. you want more fruit, less wood).

For the last 15 minutes of simmer time, I take the lid off.  I like a very thick sauce so allowing some of the water to boil off is a good thing. If it's not thick enough, at this point, I generally will add about 16oz of tomato sauce to thicken and add some more tomato-y goodness.

Now for some photos of the dinner to come...

More to come!!

Tiny Wedges of Heaven

So, I went to a drum corps show last weekend and stopped at an all-night diner afterwards.  Okay, we all know that the all-night diner is best known for three things:  Coffee you can peel wallpaper with, the finest pie you have ever tasted and fried food. 

Should any of those things be on a foodie blog.. much less a post-op gastric bypass foodie blog?

I say YES!!  Maybe not in the traditional kind of way, but this is at the very base level of my goal here -- to show you how food can still TASTE good and be good for you, even post op (or NON-op, for those of you reading who aren't surgically enhanced eaters).

Anyway, there's no recipe yet, but I'm letting you know I'm working on something unbelieveably delicious.. so good, you may sell your first born for it.  I tried to sell my cat but nobody wanted him. awww.. I'm KIDDING!!  I want him!!

There it is.  The Big Tease.  It's comin..  oh, it's comin..

and just an FYI, I'm out of town for about a week, then home for a week, then gone for another week so blog posts may be sparse..  but don't give up on me!  I'm slaving away over a hot stove just for you (and me, let's be honest). 

Salsa Dancing

Okay.. before I jump into this salsa thing, I would like to report that the tomato has been harvested.  Still needs a little ripening on the windowsill, but it's done!  I pulled a couple of cucumbers, too but haven't tried one yet.  My mom gobbled one right down though..  so I guess they're good.

Okay, I think I mentioned before that one of the things I love to do is make salsa -- LOVE fresh salsa.. and I like it chunky as opposed to runny so I'm going to give you my top secret recipe here.. and I'll be honest -- it changes all the time.  The basics are there, but I'll switch up the type of pepper.. or the type of onion.. the type of citrus or the seasonings.  To be COMPLETELY honest, I think you can't make a bad salsa if you start with the basics. These are the basics:

Tomato. Onion. Pepper. Lime. Salt. Garlic. (the salt and garlic were busy and were late to the photo shoot.  both were fined and reprimanded). In my opinion, it doesn't matter what kind of anything you use, combining these basics is going to give you a delicious salsa.

As you can see, I prefer to chop all my ingredients by hand but you may prefer a salsa that is more dip-like and so I would recommend using a blender or a Magic Bullet on pulse -- you don't want complete liquid, after all. I'm sometimes fond of using my smash chopper.  That's the gadget that you put large chunks of things inside and then smash down on the handle and it chops for you.. though I do find that chopping by hand is really very satisfying.  Like doing it all by hand means I did it with love or some schmaltz like that.  Really, I just enjoy the occupation of my time on something like this.

So I start with the tomato -- and I use very firm tomatoes.  I am fond of meaty tomatoes so I almost always use Romas.  In this case, for whatever insane reason, our local grocer was out of Romas except for TWO.. so I also took some vine tomatoes as well.  Then I de-mush them.  This is the one thing I will not concede -- you need to de-mush your tomato.

I mean it.  No Tomato Mush. Blech!

I used two large romas and two medium sized vine tomatoes for this batch.  As I explained, I like a chunky salsa so I chop my tomatoes in somewhat large chunks -- I prepare my salsas as Pico de Gallo but you can feel free to adjust to your own taste.  Once the tomatoes are de-mushed and chopped, I sprinkle a generous pinch of salt onto them and mix it in.

The onion I used today was Vidalia -- but I actually prefer to use sweet red onion or shallots.  I tend to stay away from white onions because I think the flavor overpowers everything else.. but you may disagree or prefer a very oniony salsa.  it's all up to you.  I chopped up a little less than half of the medium sized onion I picked and mixed that in with the chopped tomato.

Crush a clove of garlic and mix in.

Now, here's where it starts to get good.  Do not fear the peppers.  For the simplest salsa, I use a combination of Jalapeno and Serrano peppers.  I like some heat in anything that can have it so I tend to be heavy handed and use hotter peppers in my cooking.  I like to let my Jalapenos age because they actually get hotter the older and redder they get.  Mine have just barely started to go soft from green.  If you're not familiar with the different peppers out there, you can always use a pepper guide like this one or even this one.  To give you an idea of how they are rated for heat, a Pepperoncini is rated at 100 to 500 Scoville Heat units, whereas a Habanero pepper will rate between 100,000 and 300,000 Scoville units.  Aye Caramba!  To limit the heat you get from the pepper you choose, you can also devein and deseed it.  The less vein and seed you include, the less heat you'll get from the pepper.  And please PLEASE remember to wash your hands thoroughly before you accidentally touch your eyes.  There is no pain as intense and inescapable as pepper juice in your eye.. speaking from experience.  So, chop up those peppers and toss 'em in.  Then wash your hands.

The last of the staples is Lime -- well, technically citrus.  I like lime because I enjoy that tart, mouth-wateringly bright flavor.  I like it so much, I don't just squeeze in the juice, I include pulp AND zest.  If you've never tried it, do zest and pulp your citrus.  It pumps the flavor up about 10 notches and will make the tomato flavor absolutely pop.  You could also use lemon and, depending on the salsa you're making, even orange. Don't be afraid to give sweet a try!

Once all these things are mixed in, I like to add whatever is handy from the spice cabinet.  I'm not particularly fond of dried spices in most cases -- especially if I have fresh available -- but today I was lazy and just tossed in a little dried mint and some dried cilantro.  Mix and mix and..  voila! It's so bright and fresh and crisp.  If I had thought a little further ahead, I might have tossed in some cucumber, too.. maybe even a little celery tops..   mental note for next time.

So give it a try and let me know what you think -- how did you alter it?  What would you do different next time?

I know you'll love it, though.  Trust me!  I've been eating all my life!